It was three-thirty on a Thursday, and I was stuck in traffic on the interstate.  I was enjoying looking at cars and people, and being providentially preserved from an accident when I got a peek into my own soul I had never seen before.  While estimating how many people were enjoying the weather with me, I actually caught myself feeling better than about ten thousand people I didn’t even know.  Almost certainly some were doctors, lawyers, pastors and Christ-followers, but I felt better. 

Just as I was feeling smug about my life, an almost audible voice said inside me “You know you’re right smack in the middle of this jam.  You are one of them.”

Instantly, everything I’ve known theologically came crashing in on me like a sledge hammer.  The head met the heart then, and I wept for the blackness of my own soul, wept again for the grace that has kept me all these years in spite of my arrogance, then again for the grace that intruded on my commute.  There was much weeping that day, and my Lord and I had a good conversation that day, one that I’ll never forget.

So when I got the new Eric Peters album “Chrome”, I listened to them quickly just to get a feel for album.  I enjoyed it, but nothing like I do now that I’ve looped individual songs to really get their message.  “Reality Came Crashing Down” speaks to me deeply.  I know the message is different than my above experience, but a “Reality Crash” is still the theme, and it tears me up to think of someone with such talent having that moment where fame, glory and money suddenly slide way down the list of “gotta-haves” and love takes the lead.  It must have been excruciatingly pleasurable.  I get misty every time I hear that song, and EP is voicing the heart that I want beating in me, the one that serves his neighbor in the love of Christ.